Province Supports Inverness, World-Class Golf Destination

The province is helping the Inverness area continue to attract tourists, and boost employment and economic growth, ensuring more Cape Bretoners can stay and raise their families at home.

Construction has begun on Cabot Cliffs, a second 18-hole golf course at Cape Breton's Cabot Links resort. The development will further establish Inverness as a world-class golf destination.

The province is lending Cabot Links $8.25 million toward the $14-million Cabot Cliffs development and hotel expansion. The interest-bearing loan is fully repayable. The province's loan will only be provided when all regulatory requirements are met.

"Cape Breton's beauty has drawn people from around the world for generations, and the community of Inverness hit a hole in one with Cabot Links," said Economic and Rural Development and Tourism Minister Graham Steele. "It is providing good jobs for residents, and economic spinoffs throughout the community, and more are on the way. That's why the province is supporting the community and residents of Inverness with this investment."

Built on former coalfields, Cabot Links opened in June 2012 and employs more than 120 people.

"The positive spinoffs from Cabot Links have been felt throughout the community, from the people who work there, to local businesses like mine that have benefitted from the additional visitors to the area," said Merv Tingley, owner of the Dancing Goat Café and Bakery. "The fact that the resort is here made Inverness an obvious choice for me to open a second location."

Cabot Cliffs is being built just north of Cabot Links on a property overlooking the Cape Breton coastline. It will be designed by internationally recognized course architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.

"Recent recognition of Cabot Links as one of the best courses in the world, and the top course in Canada, has cemented a vision that the community of Inverness has fostered for decades, and one our staff worked so diligently to achieve," said Cabot Links managing director Ben Cowan-Dewar. "The support from the province takes the opportunity to the next level with a second course and its related expansion, and we are extremely excited for a bright future here in Cape Breton."

Cabot Cliffs will add seven full-time and nearly 60 part-time jobs when it opens in 2015, in addition to employment created during course and hotel construction.

Cabot Links was recently named one of the top 100 courses in the world by U.S.-based GOLF magazine. At 82, Cabot Links was ranked highest of any course in Canada.